Thursday, May 7, 2015

Moving Out of Your Rental?

What You Need to Know

BY Darlene Beeks

GIVING NOTICE

The State of Montana requires both tenants and landlords to
provide a minimum of a 30 day written notice to vacate the premises. You can
always provide more than a 30 day notice, but the minimum 30 day
requirement must be met.

CLEANING THE UNIT

After you have moved out and before the landlord’s inspection,
you should clean the premises as the condition permits. Use a checklist to
ensure you don’t miss anything and be as detailed as possible. The better you
clean, the less money will be deducted from your security deposit. Review your
move in condition report, any damages not listed on this report may have been
caused by you and may be deducted from your security deposit.

THE INSPECTION

At the request of either the tenant or the landlord,
the inspection can be performed up to a week prior to the move-out date.

During the inspection, the landlord will compare the
current condition of the premises to the condition of the premises stated on
the move-in condition report. Once the landlord has performed their
inspection, they are required by state law to provide to the tenant,
a 24 hour notice of any cleaning items that need to be addressed by the tenant
in order to bring the premises back to the condition it was in when they moved
in. If the landlord fails to provide this notice they forfeit the right to
withhold monies from the security deposit for cleaning purposes.

GETTING YOUR DEPOSIT BACK

The landlord has 30
days to provide to the tenant, a list of any deductions to be made from the
security deposit, which includes but is not limited to rent, utilities, late
fees, cleaning charges, and maintenance repairs, along with the remaining
balance, if any, of the security deposit. The landlord will mail this list to
the forwarding address provided by the tenant. If the tenant
fails to provide the landlord with a forwarding address, the landlord will mail
the list to the last known address.

If there are no deductions to be made from the security
deposit, the landlord has 10 days to
return the security deposit to the tenants by mail to the forwarding address
provided or to the last known address.

If you forget to provide your forwarding address, just give
your landlord a call and let them know your new address. Your other option is
to go to the nearest post office and submit a forwarding address for your mail.
The post office will then forward any mail you received at your old address to
your new address.